The desecration in a Strasbourg cemetery came as Jews marked the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz death camp, a symbol of the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed millions.

France’s main Jewish organization, CRIF, said at least 18 tombstones at the Cronenbourg cemetery were found Wednesday marked with swastikas and 13 of them were overturned.

The CRIF’s Marc Knobel said the inscription “juden raus” (Jews out) was found on one tomb.

President Nicolas Sarkozy “firmly condemns this unbearable act, the expression of odious racism,” said a statement from his office. It asked that those responsible be quickly identified and their acts “treated with the severity called for.”

France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and there are occasional attacks on their schools, cemeteries or places of worship.